Affordable Multi-GPU: Two GeForce 9600 GT in SLI. Page 11

The GPU developers are doing their best to promote multi-GPU technologies in all market sectors. Today we’ll find out what is the purpose of multi-GPU support in mainstream graphics cards. Is it just a marketing feature or an affordable method of boosting performance? We will check it out using Gigabyte GV-NX96T512H-B.

RPG

Hellgate: London

Hellgate Longon is a yet another in which the GeForce 9600 GT SLI meets no real opponent that would allow playing at 1920x1200 with 4x multisampling. The ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 might make one, but its driver is not optimized well for this game.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

The game loses much of its visual appeal without HDR (and without FSAA due to technical reasons). Although some gamers may argue that point, we believe that TES IV the best with enabled FP HDR and test it in this mode.

The GeForce 9600 GT SLI platform is competitive against the Radeon HD 3870 X2 in closed environments but has a very low minimum of speed in open scenes. Its frame rate can occasionally plummet to below 25fps even at 1600x1200. When working as a single card, the GeForce 9600 GT keeps the frame rate above 26fps. Anyway, that’s yet another test where the two GPUs are obviously better than one.